


Kitsune

by letmegeekatyou



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Established Castiel/Dean Winchester, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-17
Updated: 2014-02-17
Packaged: 2018-01-12 21:27:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1201299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/letmegeekatyou/pseuds/letmegeekatyou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean tells Cas about his childhood and a few of his "firsts".</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kitsune

“The first was…late ‘80s, maybe ‘90, somewhere in Illinois. Not sure exactly.”

It was quiet in the bunker; Sam was on a food run, and the Prophet of the Lord was holed up in his room playing Skyrim. Crowley they had gagged, although Dean was pretty sure he liked that a little too much. He wrapped his arms tighter around the pillow, closing his eyes as Cas, leaning on his elbow, traced patterns with his fingers across Dean's shoulder blades. The first time they had slept together, he had spent an agonizing amount of time caressing them. It drove Dean wild. Later, Cas explained that shoulders without wings looked more naked to him than any other part of the human body ever could.

“We weren’t sure what we were hunting, exactly, just that another hunter, a guy called Franklin, was supposed to meet Dad on a job in Chicago and never showed. It wasn’t like him, so we went looking. Well, Dad went looking. Way he figured it, maybe not a good idea to take a kid in if a full grown man had already gotten himself killed.”

“He was protecting you.” Cas absentmindedly slid his fingers down Dean’s back, tracing the Enochian symbols that meant “guardian” along his spine. Dean sighed at the touch. He was always like this after sex, loose and at ease. Cas felt privileged to see it.

“Mm, not so much with the protecting. I was skinny and clumsy, and I hadn’t killed anything yet. I was a liability. So he left me and Sammy at the motel and went out to work.

“It was a really skeevy place, and that's saying something--we stayed in some real roach motels--but it had a pool, which was, like, the height of ritzy to me. Irresistible. Sam had some old book he’d been found in the last motel, so he was good for a while. I made him chain the door after me, 'cause Dad would've killed me if I didn't, and I went out to the pool.

“Man, it was disgusting. Kind of a gray, slimy color, stuff floating in it, chairs that’d give you tetanus if you looked at ‘em sideways. But there was nobody around, so skinny little me gets up on the lifeguard stand, shades on, shirt off, and waits for some hot chicks to show up.” Dean turned onto his back, putting one hand behind his head and laughing a little, getting into the story.

“Not hot boys?” Cas raised his eyebrow slightly, as he wrapped an arm around Dean's stomach.

“You gotta remember, Cas, I thought I was totally straight back then. I didn’t know there was any other way to be.” Cas nodded thoughtfully.

“So, did they show up? Your hot chicks.”

“Nope, not a one. No hot people of any description. There was just this one kid, probably my age but kinda short and scruffy, with one of those faces old people like to pinch, you know? Gave me a good, long look and said, ‘you’re not a lifeguard.’

“‘Well, no shit, I’m not a lifeguard. How’d you figure that out?’

“It was like he’d never heard a person curse before—lookin’ around, making sure there were no grown ups watching. I asked him what he was scared of, and he looked me right in the eye”—Dean glanced up at Cas, smiling—”and said, ‘I ain’t afraid of no goddamn thing.’

“He had a baby face, but he looked so serious I couldn’t laugh at him. Turned out, that little shit knew more swear words than *I* did. We spent the whole morning in that lifeguard chair practicing how we’d use them once were were big enough that we couldn’t get smacked around for it. ‘Why the hell are we moving again?’ ‘Fucking make me, asshole.’ ‘Eat shit and die, you sonofabitch.’”

Dean paused, eyes locked on the ceiling, while Cas stroked his stomach, feeling the muscles tense under his hand.

“You sound like kindred spirits. Your use of expletives is extremely proficient.”

“Oh, I was an A-plus student,” Dean grinned, a little tightly, laying his free hand over Cas’s. He went quiet, holding the fallen angel’s hand against himself and slowly caressing it with his thumb.

“I saw him again later, when I went to the vending machines to get dinner for Sammy. It was pretty late, and he was just standing there, looking lost. I asked him what he was doing, and he said he couldn’t go home. He just looked so…scared, Cas. And exposed, like a deer in headlights.

“So I went over to him, and I put my arm around him, and I held him for a minute, told him it was gonna be okay, whatever it was. And then...he kissed me. Or I kissed him, I don’t really know. For a second, it was like…we couldn’t get close enough. We were clinging to each other, and it was just a kiss, but it felt…important. You know?” He met Cas’s gaze, briefly. Cas knew.

“What happened?”

“Somebody opened a door down the hall, and we both pulled away, and that was it. I took him back to the room, and I shared a bed with Sammy so he could have his own.

“When I woke up, Dad was back, and I panicked for a minute, ‘cause if he knew I’d let anybody in, whoo. I’d be in for a world of pain. But the kid must’ve snuck out early, ‘cause Dad didn’t say anything about him. He was all business: Franklin got nabbed by kitsune, fox-monsters. They were living in a trailer park nearby, harvesting pituitary glands from Greyhound passengers. Hell of a life.

“Next thing I know, Dad’s saying it’s all hands on deck, shoving a gun in my hand, telling me to stay low and and shoot anything that tried to get past him, leave the heart-stabbing to the experts. And try not to shoot him by accident.”

Dean went still for a moment, studying the ceiling of his room, where his things were, where Cas was and the mattress remembered him.

“The trailer was dark for daytime, and it was small. The grandmother in the recliner was easy, Dad ganked her like he was ringing the doorbell. The man and woman, they fought harder, came at him together, but he managed to pin the man down while he took care of the woman, then finished the man off like an afterthought.

“The thing about kitsune, they can live like people in most ways that count, if they’re careful. They get jobs, mortgages, goddamn minivans. They get married. They have kids. And when you kill a kid’s family…”

Cas studied Dean’s face, the way the muscles tensed around his eyes, the way his jaw clenched and unclenched. The hunter didn’t look at him, but Cas didn’t look away. Instead, he pulled Dean closer.

“Tell me.”

“When you kill a kid’s family, he fights back. He fights hard. This kid, he came out of the shadows so fast, somehow got Dad on the ground, had his claws out, and Dad was yelling, ‘kill it, Dean! Kill! It!’ And the kid kind of panicked, and he looked up at me, and it was the kid from the pool, only he had these claws, and there was blood on his face. I don’t think he even knew I was there until that moment. He had no idea I was there, and he looked at me, and he looked…”

“Scared?”

“Angry. He looked like he was all rage and no brakes. It was only a second we looked at each other, and then I got my hands on Dad’s knife, and then it was over. I didn’t even realize I was crying until Dad started yelling.”

Cas watched a change come over Dean’s face, making him look hard and angry, and Cas knew he was looking at John, not Dean.

“‘What’s the matter with you?’ Oh, he was pissed. ‘You know what that was? A monster. They’re all monsters, no matter how much they look like you and me.’” Dean had both hands in front of him, miming the way his father had shaken him. “They’re monsters, and you don’t hesitate, Dean. You hesitate, you’re dead. Or Sammy's dead. Is that what you want?”

His voice was unsteady, and he let his arms fell to his sides, but his jaw was set.

“So that was it, first thing I ganked. Some kid, I don’t even remember his name, because he was a monster and he was going to kill my dad.” He looked up at Cas. “Glad you asked?”

Cas ran a hand along Dean’s jaw in a long curve that resembled the Enochian for “child,” or maybe “ignition.” He pressed a kiss, gentle and fierce, on Dean’s mouth, which the hunter returned with a shaking hand in the angel’s hair.

“Son of a bitch,” Dean whispered. Cas wasn’t sure whose tears were on his face.

**Author's Note:**

> Original version of this work was posted at http://sammysalive.tumblr.com/post/65058072051/kitsune


End file.
